Mom lied to court about burnt boy’s horror death

A man was acquitted of killing his girlfriend’s son after the court found that the mother had lied about how the child died.

Pretoria - A terrible accident led to the death of a 2-year-old boy who burnt to death in a tub of boiling water.

It appears that his mother lied by implicating her boyfriend because she wanted to protect herself.

This emerged in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, after the mother of little Mpho Tshehla took the stand on Tuesday to testify against her boyfriend Brian Buthelezi. She levelled horrific accusations against him, including that he placed chilli powder in the child’s anus after he had soiled himself.

She also claimed that he poured three kettles of boiling water over the child’s head while he was in a tub and thereafter flogged the naked child across his body, which was riddled with open wounds from the burning, with a sjambok.The boy died on August 11 last year.

The allegations had the court reeling in shock, but after being subjected to hours of cross-examination by Buthelezi’s advocate, it appeared that Edith Tshehla had lied to the court.

Even Judge Eben Jordaan posed various questions to the young mother, who very calmly testified how her child was tortured to death. Her version at times left the judge raising his eyebrows.

But within minutes after her evidence, following an application by his advocate for his discharge, Judge Jordaan had no hesitation in acquitting Buthelezi.

The judge questioned how pictures of the toddler showed no burn marks on his head. The mother, however, insisted that three jugs of boiling water were poured over his head. A doctor who testified also could find no marks on his head.

Mpho had suffered burns across the rest of his body, which corroborated Buthelezi’s version. He said his girlfriend told him she filled the tub with boiling water and went outside to fetch cold water when the child pulled the tub from a stand. The water fell over him.

The doctor could also not find any marks on the child’s body reflecting a flogging with a sjambok. The judge said after studying the pictures of the child he could see no such marks.

“The child was not assaulted with a sjambok, water was not poured over his head and his version - that the child pulled the bucket off the stand when the mother wanted to bath herself - is reasonably true,” the judge said.

He said the mother seemed to have been lying to the court.

She testified that she could not get help for her child after he was severely burnt as Buthelezi had locked the two of them inside his Brakpan home.

But the judge said if one had such an injured child, the logical thing was to break the windows and shout for help, unless you had something to hide.

The mother could not explain why she did not break the windows or the door to summon help.

“I did not think about doing that,” she eventually answered after several prompts from the defence advocate, who questioned what kind of mother would let her child suffer without getting help.

Buthelezi, in his explanation of plea, said Tshehla was a drunk who used social grant money to buy alcohol.

He said he had to feed and bath the boy as she merely wrapped him in refuse bags.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za

Pretoria News